This is the closest I'm likely to get to an official website - the place to announce & discuss all of my current & upcoming projects (comix, magazine articles & columns, fiction & metafiction, & music), & to share my thoughts on the arts, media, music, film, pop culture & politics. I'll publish for the first time online older writings from hard copy magazines & newspapers. I'll also post artwork, videos, or just blog away on whatever occupies my brain.

Monday, November 23, 2015

FLICKER STREET Treatment # 17: Presence

A short but pivotal dispatch. Enjoy!

FLICKER STREET Treatment #
17: Presence

I. 1979 Revisited

1979 was a busy year for the
various personalities that had fallen under the rubric of the
Aggregate. Ben Renova came out of retirement as Wurm to stop Carnifex
from looting the Renova Savings & Loan main branch. He was not
able to ward off Carnifex alone, especially after Urias came and
teleported the money and holdings away. Urias did not need the money;
he needed to humiliate a hero and hurl the gauntlet for the next big
move against the Aggregate. The Damnation Brigade were the ones to
make that bid, with Damnation
members new and old aligned against the Aggregate. Wurm rejoined the
Aggregate. He thought it was well overdue for Carnifex and Urias to
be taken down. For good.

Milo Majestyk's mob (now
calling themselves 'The Machine' after Skull's nascent foray into
organized crime) were buying more city officials and spreading
corruption throughout Hallmark. Under the aegis of Arch-Priest Urias,
the new Damnation Brigade met up with Majestyk and worked out a plan
for the Brigade to take down the mutual adversaries of the two
groups. The new Brigade was led by Urias, tired of being behind the
scenes and eager to crush the spiritis of his foes and glory in the
heady draught of victory. Beside him was his on and off partner
Carnifex; Urias' familiar, the undead Pallor; Solomon Vossius the
Tormenter; TSD subject Alphonse Marins, also known as the incredibly
strong Mexican wrestler El Perro de Guerra (the Dog of War); Cal
Thorne aka Exterminans the Death Walker, in one of his premiere
missions; and Scottish telepath/ telekinetic Roland Mallory, a TSD
Recombinant experimented on by Donal Rykards.

Cary believed the time had
to rebuild the Aggregate HQ beneath Bradcroft Manor. This space was
to be the first HQ Compound. The Compounds were originally suggested
by Thomas Ledge as a way to capture the team's foes and keep them
imprisoned as needed. The Compounds would also be places for
Aggregate members to live so that they and their families could feel
safe. All of this meant that a self-governing system had to be put
into effect.

The Compounds would function
as co-ops/ communes. Ledge didn't like the socialist overtones yet
most of his suggestions were fed into the layout though he was rather
ungrateful. Euphrates Straw laid out the entire map and schema for
the Compounds. Construction was hired clandestinely; it was carried
out by Serafinians, who were paid well by Bradcroft and Renova. This
also chafed Ledge, but by 1980, Ledge had well worn out his welcome
with Bradcroft & co, so they chafed each other daily.

Cary sought many new members
for the group, the last time he would do so. Caulder Gaunt agreed to
join the Aggregate, as did Brother Zodiac at long last. Cary found a
pocket of ex-cons who'd been injected with TSD and were in REACT
custody: Empress Moth, Necrotica, Karibou, and Arc-Welder (More
specific biographical details on these four to follow in upcoming
segments). These were located for the group by the White Archer, who
felt it a wise idea to allow Bradcroft and company to train the “talent”
and the FSO's job was to exploit that talent for its own group
afterward.

II. The Way They Were: The
Last Days of The Original Freedom Squad

And so we return at long
last to the so-called Freedom Squad, busy on foreign missions for
months and retraining after the near-fatal Deomond/ Solus affair. In
reconstructing their bodies, REACT subtly manipulated their minds to
pledge obedience to REACT. Only the mind of John Gauvin, aka Wrath,
rejected the mental invasiveness. This was because Gauvin had been a
TSD trial volunteer; his only gift received by the treatment was
complete immunity from telepathic invasiveness (including surgical
and genetic engineering techniques). His brain was like a steel forge
and could not be penetrated. Phileas Caleb realized this and kept very close
tabs on Wrath.

Freedom Squad Ops (or FSO),
as it was most commonly referred to in those days, was the victim of
another set-up deal between Mob enterprise and Skull tech. The result
was known affectionately as the “OBIT Gang” and was unfortunately
led by the long-missing Princesa Verde of the Aggregate, Cedric
Lykos' former lover. Under her auspices were: Garnet and Cynosure,
both rejected by Bradcroft and co.; the “Solar Princess” and
hippie lightbender Sunchild; the Vietnamese shape-shifting Tran;
Anaximander Zayan's daughter Atheru, aka Soulfish; and the armored
Terrapin, who had gotten to be good pals with Convy Lee Sutch
(Cynosure).

The Freedom Squad lineup
itself had morphed with the fallout of the Deomond/ Solus incident
and rejuvenation of the team. With Ursulin AWOL in space and Solus
and the second Duellist dead, the group amounted to Liberty Lord,
Troubleshooter, White Archer, Dr E, Flare, a recent acquisition Dart (the first female member), and brand-new recruit, a powerful
Bible-thumper calling himself Vigil.

So the rejuvenated Freedom
Squad took on the OBIT Gang once in early 1980. The very outre group
took FSO by surprise and scrambled their usual group dynamic. Still
Freedom Squad's raw power looked to be winning out when Sunchild
turned Dr E's power upon himself; fortunately there were no
casualties. Soulfish had the dubious honor of snapping Dart's neck
but succumbed to Dart's weaponry; she lived but in a comatose state.
Garnet and Cynosure almost took out the White Archer. But it was
Vigil, who stepped in with his array of Recombinant abilities (to be
discussed in future accounts) and brutally dispersed OBIT. The group
fled, much to Skull's chagrin.

III. The Trinity

Alec continued to feel tense
around Kicia now that Brother Zodiac was at last a member of the
Aggregate. Alec, his mind at peace regarding the Marchessa, felt
that Kicia was his true love, hence he was somewhat awkward with her,
despite what they had shared in the past. Finally Kicia made a move,
and Cowan, having no respect for Brother Zodiac or for Kicia's love
for BZ, succumbed once more to Ms. Blessing's considerable charms.
Trevor was hardly faithful to Kicia anyway, having bedded Sunchild
before her enlistment in the OBIT Gang when she was merely a fixture
of the Flicker Street scene, as well as Empress Moth, one of the
newbies to the Aggregate. Even Ghost Cat, who Caulder Gaunt had been
professing love to for years, seemed drawn into Novembre's spell.
Gaunt confronted Mei-Chan about the situation, and she graciously put
aside her infatuation with Zodiac to allow Gaunt to “woo her
properly” (his words).

Alec took a trip to New
Orleans with Lykos to find info on the “Grey Messiah”, but the
paper trail only reached back to 1955. Meanwhile, Cotton confronted
Zodiac about his lifestyle and warned the bohemian lothario that his
days in the Aggregate may be numbered, especially if he was quite
literally sleeping with the enemy. On a drunken night in
February 1980, Alec and Lykos confronted BZ about all of this, and
suggested Zodiac go join the OBIT Gang where he might be more
comfortable, and where no one in the Aggregate would have any
compunctions against wiping the floor with him, even though the
Brother's power levels lied somewhere Dr E's and that of the Absurd
Tentacle.

Zodiac rebuffed Alec and
Cedric, who had become close friends of late, and taunted Alec with
braggadocio regarding Kicia. Trevor obviously had not realized that
Kicia and Cowan had recently been intimate. Novembre apparently did
not yet know that Kicia had just discovered that she was pregnant and
wasn't sure of the paternity. Alec did know that Kicia was expecting
and implored her to get a blood test. Lykos, in the meantime, had
developed a rather involved theory regarding Brother Zodiac. He went
to Straw and Cary with his fears. He had come to believe that
Vaikuntha had avatars in Hallmark and that “Trevor Novembre” was
one of them. Unfortunately, only the sword and amulet of the Black
Cabal could detect a Presence in one of its avatar forms, and, even
then, a Presence could make itself undetectable by most forms of
magick.

It would explain much, Cary
and Euphrates agreed. The three men (Bradcroft, Straw, Lykos) opted to go
about their business with Zodiac, hoping he didn't suspect that they
suspected him. They didn't tell Alec right away for fear of a major
set-to with Zodiac. Lykos pointed out that with Caulder Gaunt's past, Gaunt's true identity also came into question.

One night in March 1980 a
restless Zodiac left his room and Kicia sleeping. He had just learned
that he may be a father and that Alec Duarte was his true rival for
Kicia and the baby. Zodiac encountered Caulder Gaunt in the
Bradcroft Manor courtyard. Zodiac drew upon a fearsome wellspring of
mystical energy and absorbed the protesting Gaunt into himself down
to the molecular level. He then mused to himself, “Only one more
and we shall be complete..” Brother Zodiac then reached out with
his far-ranging mind and located the “one more”. He was scarcely
surprised at the identity of the other piece of the unholy trinity.
As Caulder Gaunt had emerged 25 years earlier a total amnesiac, and
Zodiac had always been guarded about his past save for his claims to
be Trevor Novembre of 1960s New Orleans, the third of this trinity
emerged in 1954 with a whole set of false memories, memories about to
be dispelled once and for all, along with the entire being that
housed those memories – all subsumed by Brother Zodiac.

And so we return to Grey
Parminter's desperate summoning of Vaikuntha in 1954, which at long
last bore cosmic fruit. Vaikuntha had returned to this plane after a
millenium but could only do this by incarnating himself into avatars
– an ability he used for millenia in the past to walk among men.
Vaikuntha would erase his memories or program himself with elaborate
false memories in an elaborate spell that even altered the memories
of those around him, to “recall” the avatar's past human
interactions. Such was the power and intricacy of an avatar working
that Cary and Ashton Bradcroft studied it to master it just in case....
for the avatar, as we have seen, is untraceable by any magick perception on Earth. It is the ultimate way for a mage or Presence to
walk among the populace of Earth, human or Exodesian alike, and work
for good or ill undetected. Its aim could gleaned from its conscious mind if made aware, but a subconscious drive could be guiding it so that when the
cosmics were right, the seed of the being who broke apart into
avatars would “awaken”.. and seek out its other selves, encased
in flesh ignorant of its making.

Brother Zodiac kidnapped
Kicia's mother Acacia and taunted Cary, Straw, Duarte, and Lykos.
Ghost Cat was despondent that Gaunt had apparently abandoned her
after such a lengthy and ardent pursuit. Kicia went to Alec and stated that she chose him over BZ. They made love, with Alec knowing any moment
Acacia could be a dead woman. They were interrupted by Cotton Suede,
Thomas Ledge, and Konchuman, who rendezvoused with Zodiac and tried
to divine just what it was that they could do so that Zodiac would
free Kicia's mother. Zodiac insisted on seeing only Duarte, Straw,
Bradcroft, and Lykos.

But the working had yet to
conclude. Even as Zodiac was physically changing, he announced that
they shall all be one family, and gestured, drawing Kicia into the
maelstrom emanating from the being was once was a trinity and now is
one. Alec held onto her hand until her body wilted and dissolved.
Alec cried out as the woman he loved and her unborn child (which was
Zodiac's, not Alec's) were consumed by the reborn Presence. And so
Vaikuntha awoke, a dead ringer for the being that Gaunt and Zodiac
had been dreaming of. Euphrates Straw was at a loss; he had never
before encountered a Presence( few had). Vaikuntha let loose a burst
of energy from his third eye, frying Straw where he stood, even as
Vaikuntha himself was blasted from behind from the now cognizant
Shadow Baron, flanked by Lykos. Cary was too late, however, and
Euphrates Straw's remains crumpled to the ground. Vaikuntha announced
his retreat and that this time around, Earth would be his to pleasure
himself with however he saw fit. He disappeared, and a heartbroken
Alec and his allies searched for find something to house Straw's
remains.

IV. Vaikuntha Rising

The Aggregate regrouped. A
ceremony was held in which the entire current team was there –
Bradcroft, Cowan, Lykos, Ledge, Cotton, Konchuman, Wurm, Ghost Cat,
Corona, Myrmidon, Empress Moth, Necrotica, Karibou, and Arc-Welder -
to pay respects to Straw and acknowledge the other two fallen
members, though this latter idea of Bradcroft's, in the interest of
ceremony and magnanimity, enraged several members. They grumbled that
Gaunt and Zodiac did little during their time with the team save plot
and ploy against them. As Thomas Ledge put it: “Ya don't honor a
man like Straw beside two pieces of shit who were planning our
destruction the whole freakin' time – whether they knew it or not.”
Cotton very vocally agreed, as did Alec (a rare instance where he and
Thomas were in sync) and so a separate acknowledgment for the two
avatars was held a week after Straw's elaborate funeral.

Straw's teammates and his
retinue from outside the team, solemnly honored this most amazing of
men. Straw's heirs attended: his lover Octavia Flay and her child by
Euphrates, Darius Flay (b. 1975); his estranged widow Artemis Clancey
(b. 1948) and her child by Euphrates, Zachariah “Zack” Straw (b.
1970); as well as the surviving members of the interconnected
Clancey, Reale, Torrance, and Flay families.

This left the Aggregate with
only one original member in its 16 year existence - the Shadow Baron,
and he shouldered the blame for all that had occurred. He knew that
the group, especially with so many young and lesser experienced
members, needed as much help as they could get. Knowing they will
refuse to help him, Cary dismissed approaching the Freedom Squad
offhand, and concentrated on two extremely powerful potential allies:
Orphee deLander, the Absurd Tentacle, and his lover Silent Indigo,
Cary's niece. Bradcroft also tried to contact his own brother to no
avail. Finally, he approached Javier's sect, who agreed to help.

Orphee immediately attempted
to take control of the situation though Cary and Javier were far more
well-versed in sorcery. After months planning by this uneasy alliance
without any incident, Vaikuntha struck the Aggregate's nascent first
Compound. Without warning, the mad god decided to merely destroy his
primary foes all at once, making a statement to the Freedom Squad or
any other gifted individuals looking to take him down. His main target, however, was Cary Bradcroft's knowledge of the Black Cabal talisman.

Gathered was the same
line-up present at Straw's memorial – perhaps the most formidable
Aggregate yet assembled. Also present were the Absurd Tentacle,
Silent Indigo, and Javier. Vaikuntha announced,
“Millenia I have slept, and dreamt beyond the pale... for the day I
wake and unleash the destroyer force on all mankind.” In one mighty
wave Vaikuntha annhilated Silent Indigo, Karibou, and the Empress
Moth, critically injuring Corona and Wurm in the process. Ghost Cat,
Cary's replacement as field commander for Euphrates, attempted to use
advanced martial arts on Vaikuntha while Javier and Bradcroft hurled arcane forces at him, and Thomas and Lykos attempted to knock him down
with brute force. Alec and Stephen Bartholemew simply shot at him.
All proved ineffectual until Orphee managed to physically wrestle the
six-armed god to the ground, using all of his psychokinetic power to
augment his strength. Brimming with rage over Indigo's death, he
brought to bear all he had against the daemonic Presence.

But then Vaikuntha unleashed his eldritch energies and the Absurd Tentacle slowly dissipated into
a small puttlylike blob before evaporating altogether. “Enough!!”
screamed a muffled voice. From out of the dust strode a tall man, dressed
head to toe in black and grey and wearing a mask concealing his
entire face, even his eyes. A bejeweled amulet gleamed about his neck,
and he wielded an ornate blade. Was this the one-man embodiment of the
force that laid Vaikuntha low 1000 years ago?

The oblique gentlemen
swiftly moved in on Vaikuntha, fearless. He proclaimed: “Tis time
once more the Balance is struck, and the Black Cabal shall make it
so. I am he you have dreaded in the dreams of a millenium sleeping in
the outer planes. And now you shall sleep again. I banish the Presence
who would rule all Creation; I drive it back, back – into the
fetid pit from which it crawled - a slug who dared believe it was
God”.

Vaikuntha raised several of
his arms as if to cast a spell, whispering only “Dharma..”, but
the Black Cabal struck him in the heart with his blade as his amulet
glistened. An all-consuming light envelopes the destined foes, and then was
abruptly snuffed out. It would be safe to say that the survivors of
this skirmish with Vaikuntha all stood in a state of complete shock.

They quickly reconnoitered to
garner medical attention for those who needed it and to mourn their
lost comrades. The year 1980 closed on a somber note for the
Aggregate, and with many more questions raised than answered by the
year's events.Welcome to Flicker Street!Henry CovertNovember 23, 2015Thanx to all of my Facebook friends, especially those who are reading.No thanx to Baal, no thanx to Rowan, no thanx to Wolfie.Flicker Street, all images, characters, and story elements are Copyright (c) 2015 George Henry Smathers Jr.

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With Honor

This eclectic collection of manga-style comix includes my story "Snow Leopard", featuring pencil art by Albert Luciano; inks by Alex Rivera; letters and tones by editor Shawnti Therrien; and was written, created, and designed by yours truly. Copies are now extremely scarce.

Creating Comics

In this trade paperback, I have a 4 page entry devoted to my storytelling process for SNOW LEOPARD. Published September 2010.

Genesis RIP 1992-2007 - friend, companion, familiar, soulmate

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My editor, collaborator and friend Shawnti Therrien

Shawnti edited 'With Honor' and aided and abetted "Snow Leopard". She also has her own killer site Immortal Gothic (click pic to travel there). Shawnti created and designed the distinctive graphics for She Never Slept, my ex-wife's former website, which hosted much work by myself and friends Sean Lee Levin and Heather Royston.

Henry Covert and Philip Jose Farmer, FarmerCon 2, August 2007

Four years ago, I finally met my all-time favorite writer. This was fortunate, as Mr.Farmer passed away in February 2009. The Maker of Universes has left ours behind for a far more radiant one. I love you, Phil.

RIP Ronnie James Dio July 10, 1942 - May 16, 2010

wrath

All contents of this blog, except where otherwise noted, are written and created by Henry Covert, and are copyright 2008-2017 by George Henry Smathers Jr. 'Strange Others', 'Strange Others by Henry Covert', and 'Henry Covert.com' were created 2007 by Henry Covert and are copyright 2007-2017 by George Henry Smathers Jr. All images copyright 2017 their respective copyright holders, save as noted otherwise.